LinkedIn as a boost to your personal brand

Last week I started a series of four chapters on social networks dealing with the platform Twitter. 

And today we continue with Linkedin, the Microsoft-owned network (From 2016) that was born to promote contacts and to project and develop our personal brand. At first many thought it was a place to hang the CV. That could be a means, but not an end.

Here's a one-minute video summary:

You can also listen to it on the podcast Todo Deja Marca, episode 85, In iVoox, Spotify Or Apple Podcast.

What is LinkedIn and what is it for??

Linkedin is a business-oriented social media website, founded in 2002 and based in Mountain View, California.

LinkedIn's vision is to create economic opportunities for every professional in the international job market..

And their mission is to connect professionals around the world to help them be more productive and achieve all their work goals..

How does LinkedIn work??

Linkedin is based on the user's professional connections. Users create profile pages that have a structure similar to that of a resume, in which they can summarize their career, advertise your particular skills and list your education and employment history.

Connections are formed between users when one accepts an invitation from another to join their network. LinkedIn allows users to advance their career by searching for jobs, finding connections in a specific company, receiving recommendations from other users and especially reinforcing and projecting your personal brand.

But companies can also create their own pages, offering information about the company and its products, publishing articles and offering job opportunities. This has been the great opportunity for B2B companies, of more industrial sectors, to be able to connect with the world in an open way.

LinkedIn History

The founders of Linkedin were investor Reid Hoffman, product designer Allen Blue, marketing professional Konstantin Guericke, engineer Eric Ly and engineer Jean-Luc Vaillant. They launched their platform in 2003.

Growth was slow at first. In 2005, LinkedIn introduced services that allowed companies to post job offers and search the web for potential employees.. In addition to these professional services, LinkedIn allows businesses to advertise on the site.

LinkedIn was finally profitable in 2007. That year, LinkedIn had more than 15 million members, and in 2011 had more than 100 millions of members worldwide. The initial public offering (IPO) of LinkedIn that same year raised 353 millions of dollars.

In 2016 LinkedIn was acquired by Microsoft by some 26.000 millions of dollars. The following year he reported that he had more than 500 millions of members in a 200 Countries.

Linkedin, the beginnings

Reid Hoffman explained, promoter of the project, that his original idea was to be an academic. Then he realized that, to be a professional academic, you have to devote most of your career to writing esoteric books that they will only understand 50 people.

He returned from Oxford and decided not to be an academic.. Joined Apple Computer to work at eWorld. He also designed, built and improved human ecosystems. SocialNet was the result. The most obvious core business model for SocialNet was that of a dating service.

He then entered the council of PayPal, and soon after they sold it to eBay in July 2002.

He realized that there would be no better time in his life to create an Internet company.. Convinced that the Consumer Internet has just begun, that was the trigger that drove him to create LinkedIn in the face of other ideas.

He found that he could transform the way people could take control of their professional lives and easily collaborate to find the right people and the right information was the most compelling., so he co-founded LinkedIn.

There were four co-founders. Three of them met at Stanford.

LinkedIn Business Model

Linkedin obtained its first funding in February 2003. They had a small office in Mountain View. Says Hoffman Almost every startup has some sort of shadow valley moment. For LinkedIn, was in the summer of 2003.

For the press, were "the Friendster for business”. Friendster was one of facebook's precursor networks. But they weren't Friendsters.. It took them time to explain what Linkedin was..

LinkedIn grew slowly compared to other social platforms. In August 2003, only had 36.000 Members. Late 2004, had about a million. These figures are insufficient by the standards of other networks.

In 2004 And 2005, the goal was to start working on "engagement", but did not attract interest from investors. It's funny.. Companies that seem to be successful don't always look good in the first two years.

The 1 January 2005, the company had no revenue. Matt Cohler joined the company to create the first product designed for companies to pay to list job opportunities. It was very slow.

The first two months his income was 30.000 of dollars per month. But in a few months they passed to some 5 millions of dollars.

Chasing the monster

At that moment, Monster.com was this big company with a market capitalization of 5 billion dollars (5 Unicorns). People thought of them., in CareerBuilder and hotJobs as successful companies. Hoffman's goal was to become a new Monster.. And they succeeded., especially since Monster sank after incurring financial scams.

Earlier 2006, started creating public profiles, profile versions that were indexed in Google. This made it easier to explain the value of Linkedin. Is someone going to Google you? There you will be with your LinkedIn profile.

There was a time when many users used LinkedIn as their CV.. And that caught the attention of recruiters.. Being profitable was a way of saying it really works.. You could build a real business. It was a very important signal for Silicon Valley..

In autumn of 2006, the structure of LinkedIn was 50 People. Very few. They felt like a shabby startup. Hoffman sensed they had to hire a CEO. He is good at strategy. Not so good at imposing focus and discipline, especially in conflicts.

Dan Nye hired, that helped grow the company. In November 2007, Fortune magazine quoted Dan Nye as saying that LinkedIn would only sell for more than 1.000 millions of dollars, despite rumors of News Corp's interest. Says Hoffman, "we never really allowed the talks to move forward", but other executives say there were always conversations. People wanted to come and meet and learn about the business.

When they asked people who would make sense to buy from them, Be Microsoft. Microsoft did not have a social network and were very closely aligned with the professional field..

They really got important proposals from the tech giants.. Reid and Dan and Jeff always knew that LinkedIn would be of great value.. If sold, it would go further than most companies would be willing to pay.

The Jeff Weiner stage and the purchase by Microsoft

Dan Nye stepped down as CEO of LinkedIn at 2009. It seemed that Hoffman's shadow made the role of an outside CEO difficult.. They only kept Steve Sordello, the CFO. He is the CFO who took the company public.

Jeff Weiner came in as president and was a good leader for the company.. It was essentially a “trial and error”. Focused on expanding infrastructure. LinkedIn was growing very fast. Brought in David Henke of Yahoo to lead engineering and operations.

Jeff had this Yahoo experience when his business units went from I don't know how many people to 600, and then revenue increased by an order of magnitude. When he left Yahoo, I was running a pretty large organization. And he grew that.. That's what Jeff did.. Guided the company through the next phase. Scale your infrastructure, scale teams, putting the right people in charge.

In 19 May 2011, more than eight years after its foundation, LinkedIn conducted an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange. With a starting price of 45 Dollars, the actions reached the 120 dollars during that day's trading.

In 2016 LinkedIn was acquired by Microsoft by 26.000 millions of dollars. The following year he reported that he had more than 500 millions of members in a 200 Countries. The rest you already know, a few weeks ago, Linkedin announced that in 2022 has already reached 850 Millions of users in the world.

The LinkedIn's global revenue In 2020 rose more than 8.000 millions of dollars, which come mainly from three different sources: premium subscriptions, the marketing solutions sector and the talent solutions sector.

Before you create a LinkedIn account, check this out.

And this works for everyone with a profile on this network.

If you think that by working in a consumer company, LinkedIn is not for you, you make a big mistake. True, LinkedIn is wonderful for B2B companies, but it is also for all professionals:

• Professionals who work as an employee in B2B or B2C
• Freelance professionals
• Young candidates and senior professionals
• Of all, Repeat, ALL sectors of activity
• CEO's and members of boards of directors
• B2B and B2C Companies
• Non-profit organizations
• Universities and business schools

Who could do without this social network? Trolls and people who do not wish to contact other people.

7 reasons why LinkedIn is a great driver of your personal brand

1 It makes it easy for you to make a fantastic first impression

The first time you see a LinkedIn profile, you start to form opinions about the owner of the profile. You'll think he's an expert?? Is it trustworthy? Do you post frequently? Is it professional? All these questions will lead you to decide whether to click on the follow button or not.. It's unusual to come across a solid LinkedIn profile. Name, professional title, Profile picture and background photo form that first idea.

2 Helps you stay in control of your reputation

The best way to treat a LinkedIn profile is as if it were a company's website.. Think about the first impression and these questions Do I trust this company?? Does it provide what I need? I like it? Is it easy to use? Do you have good testimonials? When someone visits your profile for the first time, will look at what you are talking about and try to calibrate your knowledge. Can they trust your judgment?? Are you an expert? Are you a professional? Are you consistent?

3 Drives you to achieve your dream job

Competition in the labour market is fiercer than ever. Above all, from the rise of remote work. This means that job candidates no longer reside within a defined geographical boundary.. If you optimize your personal brand and position yourself as an expert in your field, you can get a big advantage in the job market. If you strive and take into account your personal brand, you will go far, regularly creating and publishing good content, and getting the attention of your audience.

4 Humanize your organization, your brand

People want to connect with people, not with faceless companies, and most organizations don't have it. When we want to connect with a company, we are often greeted with a logo and chatbot. No emotion, without humanity, no variety. And what can we do?? When the employees display brand colors on LinkedIn, transferring purpose and values of the brand, creating content, building trust, this inevitably leads to more people trusting that organization.. And that generates a triple benefit: Sell services and products more easily and quickly. Loyalty and conquer to the best talents. Achieve greater reach of communication and engagement.

5 Invites you to create an engaged audience

It's not about many, but of good followers. To do this you have to activate the network, publish, comment on other posts, create new experiences, Insights, fresh views on a topic. LinkedIn's algorithm rewards content quality, consistency and interaction with other users.

6 It's scalable

Although LinkedIn only allows you to have up to 30.000 Contacts, There's 850 millions of active users monthly on LinkedIn. That means the reach potential of the people who see your profile and your content is tremendous.. If you push a strong personal brand and update your profile to make it an attractive page, you can reach millions of people easily. More reach equals more leads. A 79% of marketers consider LinkedIn to be a very good source of contacts.

7 LinkedIn is the most reliable platform

According to the Digital Trust Report 2020 from Insider Intelligence, LinkedIn has established itself as the most reliable platform during 4 consecutive years. By boosting your personal brand on LinkedIn, not only do you validate being trustworthy but you also establish credibility. People care about authenticity. There may be other networks where some people spend more time, but that doesn't make them any more credible.

Some ideas to have a good profile on LinkedIn

Based (partly) in the article 20 steps to a better LinkedIn profile in 2022 by Jane Deehan, Senior Content Marketing Manager at LinkedIn.

• Choose the right profile picture for LinkedIn. Your profile picture is your business card on LinkedIn: it's the way you're introduced to people and (as visual beings that we are) governs your impressions from the beginning. Make sure the photo is recent and reflects you well, your face should assume the 60% of it (remote photos do not stand out), put on what you'd like to bring to work and smile with your eyes.
• Include a background photo: Your background photo is the 2nd visual element at the top of your profile page. Attract people's attention, set the context and show a little more about what matters to you.
• Make your headline attractive, not a mere job description. There is no rule that says the description at the top of your profile page has to be just a job title.. Have you thought about insights, in value propositions?

• Turn your "about" into an inspiring story. Above all, do not leave this section blank. Your summary is your chance to tell your own story, so don't just use it to list your skills or the jobs you've had.. Try to explain why those skills are important and the difference they can make to the people you work with.
• Forget the words "spent". Some time ago I wrote a post on my blog "Useless words and personal branding". I recommend you read it to avoid expressions that are so used, have lost credibility: “specialized”, “Leadership”, “centered”, “strategic”, “experienced”, “passionate”, “expert”, “Creative”, “innovative” And “certificate”. Don't write them, show them.
• Grow your network. Easy: sync your profile with your email address book. This allows LinkedIn to suggest people you could connect with.. In addition, get used to following meetings and conversations with connection requests on LinkedIn: is a great way to keep your network active and up to date.
• List your relevant skills. It's one of the most interesting features on LinkedIn: search the list of skills and identify the ones that are relevant to you, that will help others endorse you. External feedback is valuable, and also if you offer it with generosity and rigor..
• Highlight the services you offer. If you're freelance, "Services" is a new feature of LinkedIn that helps consultants, freelancers and those who work for small businesses. Filling out the Services section of your profile can increase your visibility in search results.
• Recommend and request recommendation. Endorsements from other members confirm your value proposition and increase your credibility. Don't be afraid to send a respectful message asking to be supported with a recommendation. And do the same as long as you think the person deserves that recommendation. (your reputation is at stake). 
• Show your passion for learning. When you complete a course on LinkedIn Learning, you will have the opportunity to add a course certificate to your LinkedIn profile. This is managed from the learning history section of your LinkedIn Learning account.
• Share white papers, Cases and pre-approved brand value content. That helps you show the keys to the company you work for and helps people understand what moves you.. It also shows passion and commitment.
• Strengthen your way of thinking thanks to your articles.  The articles section is one of the most underutilized on LinkedIn (LinkedIn's blog), which means you can stand out from the crowd if you use this feature.
• Share relevant content from your LinkedIn feed. It's one thing to have a network of connections on LinkedIn, the other is to activate it. Appearing in the feeds of your connections thanks to valuable content is one of the most accessible ways to achieve this.
• Says, Interacts. Sharing is great, but it's just the starting point. When you add comments to what you share or what other people share, you tap into LinkedIn's true networking potential.
• Follow influencers in your industry. Following relevant influencers on LinkedIn helps you put a number of interesting content in your feed, that you can then share with others when you think they add value.
• Become a brand ambassador. If your company has launched Employee Advocacy programs, you will be able to transfer to this network the most important progress of the company, your vision and your values.
• Don't forget to create your pitch 30 seconds in your profile picture. If you really want to differentiate yourself, this is, Possibly, the best option to show your value proposition personally, with your voice, gestures and look as reinforcements of your personal brand.
• Stand out by activating your creator mode of content. That will allow you to add hashtags about your best competitions in the title., give more visibility to your publications, broadcast direct on LinkedIn and create newsletters.

To know more about LinkedIn

• Alex Lopez, specialized in social selling and Linkedin for business, author of the book Digital customer, digital seller and your own blog.
• Inge Saez, Consultant, trainer and author of numerous online courses by LinlkedIn and her own Blog.
• Peter of Vincent, author of the book "Squeezing LinkedIn" and his blog with the same name.
• Sandra Long, author of the book LinkedIn for Personal Branding and its site postroadconsulting.com
• Naomi Vico & Esmeralda Diaz-Aroca, author of the Guide to creating a perfect profile on LinkedIn IMF Business School.
• David Diaz Robisco, Consultant, trainer and author of numerous articles on his site informacionparalaaccion.com
• David Guzman, consultant and trainer specializing in LinkedIn strategy, author of the blog his name.
• Colia Hil, trainer specializing in employment and personal branding, author of her own blog
• Article: Personal Branding and Linkedin: facts for each other, which I published in November 2019.

I hope I have contributed this article / podcast about Linkedin. I wait for you next week talking about Instagram as a promoter of your personal brand.

Stock Photos from kovop58 / Shutterstock